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private wars of the nobility directed at gaining property or avenging an insult. |
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The troubles that were racking England now were of a different sort. Heavy taxation and poor crops had ruined many villeins, small farmers who owned a few acres of land, and even some of the lesser squirearchy. Some understanding or rich landlords, like Alinor, simply carried the burden, allowing the debt to mount and hoping that better times would permit the free smallholder to repay it in the future. Some landlords did not care, or were so pressed for money themselves that they could not carry nonpaying tenants. These put the villein off his land and found another tenant who could pay; it was a double profit, in that the new tenant had to buy the land as well as pay the rent. Unfortunately, this left the previous tenant with nowhere to go and no way to keep his family from starvation. |
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Some sold themselves into bondage, sinking to the level of serf to keep bread in their mouths and a roof over their heads. Some went into the growing towns, where the fortunate found employment in the new industries of trade and manufacture, and the unfortunate died of want or were flogged or hanged. Many, however, desperate and embittered, formed together into bands and preyed upon those more fortunate than themselves. Occasionally these bands would be led by a dispossessed knight or the rebellious younger son of a nobleman. These marauders, managed with discipline and intelligence, were the hardest to deal with, and Ian feared that that was what he had found here. |
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It seemed to Ian that they had been out too long for Adam. The boy still sat straight in the saddle, but he looked pale to his suddenly anxious stepfather. They had another two hours of riding, even if they did not skirt the borders of the estate but rode directly for the keep. Ian glanced at the sun, or, rather, at the bright area that betrayed the sun's presence in the cold, gray |
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